Played as Al Gore in the 2000 scenario, starting in the general election. Simply played off Bush's unpopular views on Nation-Building, footsoldiers, and ads. A two-day ad blitz, combined with two massive scandals put the final nail in the coffin.

Light Colored States are within 3% of the runnerup.

Texas was actually unexpected. For a long time I was behind, and even on election day, polls showed Bush leading 55-41. For a while, I thought I might capture the state, but it eventually fell back into Bush's column.

Played the 2000 scenario as Bush, starting with the general election, following a similar strategy as I did with Gore. However, I attacked Gore on Health-Care reform, while centralizing my views a bit in Nation-Building so he could not attack me as well. The campaign went better than expected, despite Cheney doing better in the debates than Bush (he lost all three). Massive media blitz at the end ensured a massive turnout. The only problem I did have was that I never managed to find a scandal on Gore, despite spending 3 weeks researching. Guy was very clean this time around.

Played as John Glenn in the 1984 General Election. On election I thought I was going to win, because I had massive momentum, there were a lot of tossup states, and Reagan had a lot of negative momentum. I was surprised by the results.

Light Colored States are within 2% of the runner up.

What made the defeat even worse was that I had won the Popular Vote by a comfortable margin, despite being destroyed in the electoral vote. I at least had the satisfaction of taking Reagan's home state. This might also be the only election in which the nominee's both lost their home states to their opponent, while the Vice-Nominee's captured theirs.

Romney, the early frontrunner, lost the Republican nomination at the final hurdle. Charlie Crist, who came second in the popular vote, edged out Mitt Romney to the nomination thanks to the endorsements of Governor's Huckabee, Sanford, Jindal and Palin. Can the former Governor and current Junior Senator from Florida beat the incumbent Barack Obama after the pair have become almost bi-partisan allies over the course of Obama's first term?

Try Perot against the Democrats, it's more interesting that way. Buchanan was very likely to be far ahead of your fundraising rates going into the election. With the Democrats, at least you should be able to take most of the Republican base, and therefore not face that same problem.

The Primaries were filled to the brim with candidates. But at the beginning, it seemed like a Clinton-Cuomo fight. After February, the only major candidates left were Clinton, Cuomo, and Jay Rockefeller. Rockefeller started picking up steam, and split the south with Clinton, and Cuomo was unable to catch a majority of delegates.

Mario Cuomo-1599 Delegates, and 42.1% of the popular voteJay Rockefeller-939 Delegates, and 28.4% of the popular voteBill Clinton-869 Delegates, and 29.4% of the popular vote

It looked like the Convention battle would be between Cuomo and Rockefeller with Clinton playing as king-maker. But two weeks after the last primaries, Clinton endorsed Rockefeller and dropped out. With all of Clinton's delegates, Rockefeller was the Democratic nominee.

Jay Rockefeller-1808 DelegatesMario Cuomo-1599 Delegates

At the Convention, Rockefeller picked Bill Bradley as his running mate and headed into the General election to face Perot/Stockdale.

Rockefeller had a crushing lead in the polls during the entire election. Perot tried to hold on to he Mountain West, the only region he was winning in, but even there, some states slipped through his fingers. He was also competitive in Maine and New Hampshire.

Rockefeller crushed Perot in all three debates, and Bradley crushed Stockdale. And on election day, the Democrats won in a huge landslide.

I've just played a scenario which took place in 2008 with Kerry as the incumbent President after beating GWB in 2004. I played as John Kerry.

Kerry, having become unpopular, faced primary challenges from 4 other Democrats with his closest opponent being Former Representative and V.P. nominee Geraldine Ferraro (LOL!) with Governor Ed Rendell and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthanal in third and fourth place respectively. Blumenthal dropped out early on in the primaries and endorsed Representative Ferraro. Ferraro's picked up some strong momentum after winning alot of the early states (Kerry carried Nevada, Rendell carried South Carolina and Blumenthal carried Michigan). This momentum carried her to some strong wins on Super Tuesday. It seemed like a sure thing that Ferraro would become the Democratic nominee until "Mini Tuesday" in March when Kerry pulled off an unexpected victory in Ohio. Kerry's only other victory following Ohio was in Indiana. Rendell went on the pick up some heavy momentum, as Ferraro's began to fizzle out, leading him to some strong wins in the final primaries, although he remained in a distant third place. Governor Rendell went onto endorse President Kerry in July, giving Kerry a majority of the delegates making him the Democratic Nominee.

Due to Vice President John Edwards' resignation midway through his term, President Kerry selected Senator Barack Obama as his new running mate. Due to the strongly divided primary battle for the Democrats, Kerry began the general election far behind Governor Mitt Romney (who beat VP Cheney, Sec. Powell, Sec. Rice, Sen. McCain and Gov. Perry in the Republican primary) in the polls, leading in only 8 states. Kerry climbed his way up in the polls until he was tied with the Governor. The weekend before the election, the tied "swing states" were Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas and Colorado. President Kerry rested his hopes, once again, on a win in Ohio.